


A Shared Negative Opinion

by phoebenavarro



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Brooke and Chloe need to work on their friendship, Brooke being the absolute sweetest person, Comfort, Drunkenness, Friendship, Vomiting, the boyf riends is one sided on Michael's part
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-03-26 16:18:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19009357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoebenavarro/pseuds/phoebenavarro
Summary: After the Halloween party, Michael finds Brooke hiding in the bushes outside, and they commiserate over their Jeremy woes. Michael gives her a ride home, and he walks away with a new perspective, and maybe a new friend?





	A Shared Negative Opinion

Michael leaves the bathroom and makes a bee-line for the front door, not wanting to risk another encounter with Jeremy. At least he stopped crying. He’s ready to go home and crash, and for once, he thinks he’ll be able to fall right asleep. Good. He doesn’t want to think about this horrible night any more, or about how Jeremy essentially ended a decade of friendship with a single word. He shakes his head to clear it. Unconsciousness will be a blessing. 

When he’s outside, he pauses and looks up at the sky, breathing in the cool night air. In the relative quiet, he can hear someone crying nearby. Guess he’s not the only one having a bad time tonight. He spots a figure sitting in the bushes in front of the house. He takes a step closer, and he realizes it’s Brooke who’s crying. Brooke, who Jeremy’s been dating. Shit. 

“Are you okay?” he asks, ignoring the part of his brain telling him to leave her alone and just go home. She looks pitiful and cold in her skimpy costume, and he’s honestly concerned for her safety. She looks up at him, and a brief flash of recognition crosses her face. Her lip trembles. 

“No,” she says, and she bursts into a fresh set of sobs. Michael fiddles with his sleeves, unsure of what to do, and after a moment he sits next to her among the bushes. 

“What happened?” he asks. Brooke takes a few gulps of air, calming herself down. She wipes her eyes with her hands, smearing her makeup down her cheeks. If she notices, she doesn’t seem to care. She sniffles a few times. 

“Jeremy,” she says simply. Michael’s stomach twists into a knot at the mention of Jeremy’s name, although he’s not surprised to hear that Jeremy’s the reason Brooke’s upset. 

“What did he do,” Michael asks, dreading the answer, but needing to know anyway. Brooke hiccups. 

“I’m sorry,” she says, “I know you’re friends with him.” She looks at him guiltily, as if it’s her fault and she’s expecting him to be mad at her. 

“Not anymore,” Michael sighs, “Don’t worry about it. Tell me what happened.” Brooke sucks in a breath and nods, and the words come spilling out of her.

“Jeremy made out with Chloe — maybe had sex with her, i don’t know — in Jake’s parents’ bedroom, even though he knew my last boyfriend cheated on me, he went and did it anyway, with my best friend. And I know Chloe only did it to piss Jake off, but she didn’t even think about me. She never does, no one ever does. It’s like I’m invisible.” Her tears start up again. “I’m surprised you even saw me.” Michael bites back a joke about how he didn’t see her — he heard her. But he can tell she wouldn’t appreciate it. Not everyone copes using humor like he does, he gets it. Instead, he places a hand on her back and rubs it in an attempt to comfort her. 

Michael knows a thing or two about feeling invisible, especially lately. 

“I know what you mean,” he says, “I’m sorry he did that to you. It’s really shitty.” Jeremy’s been doing a lot of shitty things lately, he thinks. Brooke rubs her nose on her sleeve. 

“What did he do to you?” she asks, “I mean, why aren’t you friends anymore?”

“It’s a long story,” Michael says, “He’s ignored me for weeks, and then tonight we had a fight and he called me a loser.” He shrugs. “I’m done.” Brooke frowns. 

“What the hell!” she exclaims angrily. Michael is slightly taken aback. Is she mad on his behalf? She grabs his shoulders and looks him in the eyes. Hers are still red from crying. 

“You are not a loser,” she says firmly, “I mean, yeah, you’re weird, but you do it so confidently, like you don’t care what anyone else thinks, that you’re cool in your own weird way. Do you know how many people would give anything to be like that?” Brooke stuns Michael with that wise statement. Then, she turns away from him and throws up into the bushes. Oh. She’s still drunk. That… makes sense. Michael’s just glad he’s not squeamish. He makes some more attempt at comforting her as she vomits. 

After a minute, she straightens back up and faces him again. 

“Sorry,” she says. Michael shrugs, as if to say ‘don’t worry about it.’ 

“You know what,” she continues, “Fuck Jeremy.” Michael lets out a short laugh of surprise. “We both deserve better! You need a guy who likes all your weirdness and thinks it’s cool.” 

“Thanks?” Michael replies. Does the entire school know he’s gay and has had a massive crush on Jeremy for years, or is she just talking like that because she’s drunk? He hopes it’s the latter. 

“And I need to find someone at this school who won’t cheat on me.” She looks grimly determined. 

“Well, there’s always college,” Michael offers timidly. Brooke looks at him for a second, then devolves into giggles. She leans against him, continuing to giggle. 

Okay, this is a little too familiar for him. He barely knew anything about Brooke before tonight, and he isn’t a huge fan of physical contact from pretty much anybody except Jeremy. (And well, that’s over now, isn’t it? The thought makes his breathing hitch. No, he can’t do this now, not in front of Brooke.) He needs to go home. 

But he can’t leave Brooke here, especially not after she basically bared her soul to him. 

“Brooke,” he says, “Do you need a ride home?” She looks at him with wide eyes.

“Yeah,” she replies, “I was supposed to go home with Chloe, but that’s obviously not gonna happen now.” Michael nods. 

“I’ll give you a ride,” he offers. 

“Really?”

“Yeah, it’s no problem.” She blinks away more tears. 

“Thank you, thank you, Michael,” she pulls him into a tight hug, “I thought I was gonna have to call my parents to come get me, and they would’ve killed me.” Michael learns two important things about Brooke that night. She’s kind and sensitive, kinder than Michael ever thought she’d be, spending so much time with Chloe. The second thing is that Brooke knew his name. He had no clue how she did; they’ve never spoken to each other before tonight, never had a class together. Jeremy could’ve mentioned Michael to her, but that seemed unlikely, since Jeremy has been pretending Michael doesn’t exist. So that left social media, which made sense. She’d looked him up on instagram after seeing him in Jeremy’s posts, and she took the time to remember his name. Michael had no idea she was so considerate. 

“Hey, it’s no big deal,” he says, “My moms taught me to help people out, not leave them in the bushes outside a halloween party.” He pats her gently on the back a few times, and she releases him from the hug. He stands up and offers a hand to her. 

“Need help?” he asks. She takes his hand and gets to her feet. Michael has to steady her a bit, but she’s sobered up considerably since they started talking.

“My car’s not far,” he says, pointing to it on the street. They make it, and Michael helps Brooke into the passenger seat. Once she’s buckled in, he gets in on the driver’s side and starts driving. Brooke guides him to her house, and he pulls into the driveway. 

Brooke unbuckles her seatbelt, then she pauses. 

“Tonight sucked,” she says, “But talking to you made it suck less, so… Thanks.” The sincerity on her face tells him she means it. His instincts are to deflect any show of emotion with a joke, but at this point in the night, his witticisms seem to have abandoned him. 

“Yeah, me too,” he says instead. She smiles at him.

“Oh, and thanks for the ride,” she giggles. She gets out of the car and waves goodbye. 

“No problem,” he replies, and as she closes the door, “Hey! Remember to drink water!” She flashes him a thumbs up from outside the door. He waits to make sure she gets inside the house safe, like his mothers taught him to do if he dropped someone off at their house after dark (until now, Jeremy had been the only one to see the benefit of that policy — and there goes another pang of sadness and anger.)

Michael sighs, and he puts the car in reverse. As he drives home, he tries to figure out what to make of Brooke. He’s always thought of her as Chloe’s sidekick, a Heather, a Mean Girl. And well, he had done what everyone else did. He hadn’t seen Brooke as her own person, and he hates himself for it. He hates doing the same thing as everyone else, that’s kind of his whole schtick, and he must admit that maybe he should reexamine his feelings about the other kids at school. 

He goes straight to bed as soon as he gets home, and when he wakes up, he has a message from Brooke on instagram. 

lohstpuppydog: we got out of that party at the right time  
lohstpuppydog: holy shit 

Michael has no idea what she’s referring to. He replies with a question mark. 

lohstpuppydog: oh god have you not heard

Before he can reply, she sends him a link to a post from Jenna Rolan’s facebook. He takes a second to read it, and his eyes widen in shock. 

retromichael: fuuuuuuuuuck  
retromichael: what the hell  
retromichael: that’s messed up  
lohstpuppydog: I know :( 

Michael’s mind races as he connects the dots. Rich had been trying to get rid of his Squip, he must have. This is bad. This isn’t some friend of a friend nonsense, this is someone he knows trying to kill himself to get a supercomputer out of his head. Michael spends the rest of the day searching for some way to deactivate Squips. There had to be at least one, right? Just in case Jeremy decides to pull his head out of his ass. Michael’s not gonna let the person he cares most about do any permanent damage to himself, even if he’s become a huge dick. 

Monday at school, Brooke approaches Michael in the hallway as he’s listening to music. She grabs his shoulder to get his attention, scaring the shit out of him. He practically jumps out of his skin as he tears his headphones from his ears. 

“Girl are you trying to give me a heart attack?” he says, exhaling the breath he’d held in. 

“Sorry,” she laughs, “It’s hard to get your attention.” 

“It ensures that the only people who talk to me really want to talk to me,” he deadpans. He spots Chloe across the hall staring daggers in their direction. 

“I just wanted to make sure you’re okay,” Brooke says, once again stunning Michael with her compassion. 

Michael shrugs. “I’m getting there.” Brooke nods.

“Me too.” 

“Brooke,” Chloe hisses from across the hallway. Brooke glances at her, sees that she means business, and looks at Michael apologetically. 

“I gotta go,” she says, giving him a little wave. 

“Hey,” Michael says, stopping her, “If you see Jeremy, give him a piece of your mind. For me.” 

“Oh, believe me,” Brooke replies, “I will.” She hurries over to Chloe, who hooks her arm around Brooke’s possessively and glares at Michael one more time for good measure. Well, they clearly had made up. Whatever. It’s not his business, anyway. He pops his headphones back on and walks to class. 

In the days leading up to the play, Brooke comes to say hi to Michael each morning and they have a little conversation. Chloe even warms up to him after Brooke tells her about how Michael took care of her at the party after Jeremy had been a dick to him too. She stops glaring at him, and she’ll even say hi. Michael’s not sure what to make of it. He wouldn’t say they’re friends, but… They’re friendly. Maybe they could be friends; he wouldn’t be opposed to being Brooke’s friend.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this cause I love Brooke and Michael and it's a bummer that they don't really interact during the show at all. I think they'd actually get along quite well, and well, they can bond over shitty stuff Jeremy did. I also think Michael's inclusion in the friend group post-show would make a lot more sense if he had already gotten to know a few of them better beforehand, so there's this. 
> 
> I might continue this fic at some point but I think it's also pretty well contained here. 
> 
> Find me on tumblr @phoebenavarro


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